Looking for pointers to a motorized bulk film back

[DaveBell]

There's a lot of "legacy" equipment out there, but I'm not familiar with much of the medium format gear I might find on eBay, etc.
I'd like to find (cheaply, of course!) a motorized 6x6 or 6x7 cm back that can take a bulk load of 6 cm film; maybe 50 feet/200 frames or so. Or longer...

The goal is a 1000 mm (mirror-) lens-based, automated eclipse camera for August 2017...

Dave

[Ned.Lewis]

Good luck with your project. I too am already planning for 8/21. I'm sure at the least I'll make a some solargraphs.....

[DaveBell]

Thanks, Ned! We're so close to this one, it has to happen. even if I end up in a wheelchair and have to roll myself up north!
Went to Puerto Vallarta for 7/11/91, Romania for 9/11/99, and Nevada for 5/20/2012 (annular)...
Long-focus pinholes are great for the partial phases, but I don't think I could get much of an image of the corona.

[Ned.Lewis]

I've got one of those coronado solar telescopes and will beef up the imaging by then. And other things planned too! I really enjoyed the annular one, we went near Lake Shasta for that one.

This is a 6 hour pinhole solargraph, you can see when it was annular by a narrowing of the trace and the two fainter dark patches. The gaps before sunset were caused by clouds. You can see Whiskeytown lake under the sun streak.


Solargraphic Eclipse par Ned, on ipernity

We're planning to go near Madras, Oregon for this one ( and we have a place we like to stay near Mt. Bachelor which is only about an hour away ). By my reckoning on the average cloud cover for the morning on that date, I think central Oregon has a slightly better chance of being clear than Casper Wyoming. My parents have said they will join us if they can, my Dad will be 83.

[DaveBell]

Yes! I believe remember your solargraph; very nice...
We haven't decided where to go; cloud cover is obviously very important.
The Northwest segment looks good, but for a (slightly) longer period of totality, we're also considering a visit to friends in Missouri.

[Ned.Lewis]

PM me if you want information about a nice place to stay near Bend Oregon. My hunch is that Missouri and parts of the path Northwest of there might be best not only because you'll get a little longer full eclipse, but because cloud cover often doesn't develop until afternoon in that part of the country. I wanted to pick a place within driving distance, so Wyoming was as far as I considered!

[Jim Jones]

Thanks for the heads up. Several years ago I struggled with a solar pinhole camera 24 feet long made of black plastic pipe. With a few more days to work out some bugs, it might have been fairly successful. Maybe I'll resurrect the remains of that camera and try again. I'm in Missouri, near the path of totality.

[Ned.Lewis]

Even though I have a solar telescope, my favorite views of the annular eclipse and the transit of Venus were with my 20x80 binoculars, with solar filters made from Baader film. I'l think too about some kind of special pinhole project. At the very least I need to remember to look under some trees when the eclipse is partial to see the famous "natural pinhole" images! I can imagine aiming a 24 foot pipe would be a challenge!!!

[scheimfluger_77]

This is awesome!

I had no idea one of these was coming, and I live in Columbia, MO. It will be my second total solar eclipse. The first one was Bozeman, MT February 1979 about a month before our daughter's birth. The wife said she was doing flip flops all morning.

[Tom Persinger]

really nice image Ned! love the tones and the composition! Well done!
(and you said you didn't have anything for the members salon show!!! ;0 )